TY - JOUR
T1 - The dynamics and control of the CubeSail mission
T2 - A solar sailing demonstration
AU - Pukniel, Andrew
AU - Coverstone, Victoria
AU - Burton, Rodney
AU - Carroll, David
N1 - Funding Information:
This study is supported by NASA SBIR Phase 2 Contract Number NNX08CC85P. The authors would like to thank Les Johnson of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, Greg Farmer and Mark Johnson of NeXolve Corporation Inc., Huntsville, Alabama, and Lee Sentman for highly informative discussions. The authors would also like to acknowledge the CubeSail team, especially Professor Gary Swenson, Alex Ghosh, and Julia Laystrom-Woodard for their support of this work.
PY - 2011/12/1
Y1 - 2011/12/1
N2 - The CubeSail mission is a low-cost demonstration of the UltraSail solar sailing concept (Burton et al.; 2005; Botter et al.; 2006; Hargens-Rysanek, 2006; Pukniel, 2009), using two near-identical CubeSat satellites to deploy a 260 m-long, 20 m 2 reflecting film. The two satellites are launched as a unit, detumbled, and separated, with the film unwinding symmetrically from motorized reels. The conformity to the CubeSat specification allows for reduction in launch costs as a secondary payload and utilization of the University of Illinois-developed spacecraft bus. The CubeSail demonstration is the first in a series of increasingly-complex missions aimed at validating several spacecraft subsystems, including attitude determination and control, the separation release unit, reel-based film deployment, as well as the dynamical behavior of the sail and on-orbit solar propulsion. The presented work describes dynamical behavior and control methods used during three main phases of the mission. The three phases include initial detumbling and stabilization using magnetic torque actuators, gravity-gradient-based deployment of the film, and steady-state film deformations in low Earth orbit in the presence of external forces of solar radiation pressure, aerodynamic drag, and gravity-gradient.
AB - The CubeSail mission is a low-cost demonstration of the UltraSail solar sailing concept (Burton et al.; 2005; Botter et al.; 2006; Hargens-Rysanek, 2006; Pukniel, 2009), using two near-identical CubeSat satellites to deploy a 260 m-long, 20 m 2 reflecting film. The two satellites are launched as a unit, detumbled, and separated, with the film unwinding symmetrically from motorized reels. The conformity to the CubeSat specification allows for reduction in launch costs as a secondary payload and utilization of the University of Illinois-developed spacecraft bus. The CubeSail demonstration is the first in a series of increasingly-complex missions aimed at validating several spacecraft subsystems, including attitude determination and control, the separation release unit, reel-based film deployment, as well as the dynamical behavior of the sail and on-orbit solar propulsion. The presented work describes dynamical behavior and control methods used during three main phases of the mission. The three phases include initial detumbling and stabilization using magnetic torque actuators, gravity-gradient-based deployment of the film, and steady-state film deformations in low Earth orbit in the presence of external forces of solar radiation pressure, aerodynamic drag, and gravity-gradient.
KW - Low earth orbit missions
KW - Mission design
KW - Solar sailing
KW - Spacecraft dynamics
KW - Tether dynamics
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U2 - 10.1016/j.asr.2011.07.014
DO - 10.1016/j.asr.2011.07.014
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:80054060827
SN - 0273-1177
VL - 48
SP - 1902
EP - 1910
JO - Advances in Space Research
JF - Advances in Space Research
IS - 11
ER -